Recently my 86 1200 started giving me trouble. It would crank and fire and run at idle, but when I tried to give it gas it died. When I tried to crank it back up there was a large amount of white smoke coming from under the seat. I imediately stopped and looked and a ground wire attached to the battery was fried. Further investigation showed the ground wire to the fuel sending unit on top of the tank fried also. I am a loss as to what the problem is, has anyone had a similar problem? I do want to add that the bike has normally started with just a touch of the button and warmed up no problem. This time it took a little to get it started.

wow, id have to see it to believe it! possibly if your ground cable from the battery to the engine was completely open or "not making contact" and you have some type of an accessory ground added to the battery terminal with a smaller gauge wire than you could cook the wire. the fuel sender wire is a mystery? are you certain it is the negative side of the battery? also if your positive "post" on the battery were shorted directly to ground you could cook the ground wire.but the battery would also be ready to blow its lid off! both of these "guesses" could occur without the fuses blowing.find the issue before turning the key on again!

thompsoj22, appreciate your reply. Someone had ran a small guage wire from the negative post on the battery to a bolt on the frame, and another small gauge wire from the negative post to the negative side of the accessories connection on the fuse block. These were the wires that fried they were #12 or #14 stranded wires. I removed them and ran a continuity test test from the negative terminal to various parts of the frame anf got good readings. And no fuse were blown. Still looking into it.

My bet is that those small wires were caring a large part of the current vhen you started the bike. You have bad grounds somewhere. The meter will not show it because the ground is failing when under load. Remove and clean all ground wires on the bike then reinstall. It must have been having problems in the past hence the added wires. BTW, I am a Journeyman Wireman but that does not mean I'm always right, just an educated guess...Rusty

Rusty Bike; thanks for the reply, I also bekieve it is a ground problem. The bike has never done this since I have had it. This is something entirely new to me. When I get the time I will see what I can do with all of the grounds.